Welcome normality

Hello normality. I have just noticed that I have been reading the Sunday papers and for the first time in ages, have started at the front and read my way through the whole thing without scanning every page for news on 'London bombs', 'Kings Cross', 'Victims' etc. Grief and shock and fear makes you sit at the bottom of a well , wearing blinkers; the world narrows to reflect your own troubled self's concerns. It feels offensive to see people worrying about things that are nothing to do with your own worries, banal to see people arguing about the Ashes; everything feels brittle and trite. Work is meaningless, music too painful, socialising leaves you numb or worse, irritated. Everything conspires to lock you into the isolation of anxiety. Other's concerns seem self-indulgent, but so too does your own preoccupation with something that no-one else can see, no-one else can feel.

It has been easier this time around though; in 2002 I had a near-death experience and was severely traumatised, but in that case it was a personal tragedy and the media and the wider world knew nothing of it. I wrote and talked and read and fought my way out of that one, and it was those tools I turned to again when the darkness of fear and the visceral mist of anger and the post-traumatic shock symptoms descended once more. This time I knew the territory and had the tools to hand, bitter though the learning had been before.

But seven weeks have passed and the glass walls of the prison have melted away already. I am sitting in the garden and reading, Miff the cat is rolling and purring in the dust under the geraniums and lavender bushes, bees are hovering in the last of the summer flowers. Cricket on the TV, croissant crumbs on my lips, the sun beating down as I top up my Turkish tan. And I am not afraid ( perhaps I should belatedly stick my picture on that website wearenotafraid.com) and the shock of the bombs are fading. It is a long weekend, London prepares for the last big party of the summer, England looks like it might win the Ashes, my colleague and I have secured a high-profile deal at work - my first deal, and I was given champagne for the CEO for it! More people are finding Kings Cross United and looking forward to drinks on the 8th, I don't feel so responsible for everyone, just pleased that we are finding and helping each other. The bank have returned my money. Life is good. I am getting my sense of humour back. I am laughing a lot more.


I am very glad to be alive, but in a lazy, contented way, rather than a shuddering, can't-believe-it way. Miff stretches and waves her paws, enjoying the heat of the sun on her flanks. I know how she feels.